Page 6 of South of Nowhere (Colter Shaw #5)

6.

Shaw returned to the camper and grabbed two large black suitcases from a storage area near the kitchen.

As he approached the end of the highway, he opened them. From one suitcase he took out an orange float, in the shape of a donut, about eighteen inches across, like a child’s pool toy. It would flow with the current, and if the device lodged against a log or rock, its sensors would shoot out jets of water to free it.

From the other case he removed a VidEye drone. He assembled it quickly and took out his phone from a pocket. He pulled up an app and typed in a command. The drone’s four motors came silently to life.

It was a heavy craft, about fifteen pounds, and would remain fairly stable even in this wind and slashing rain. He turned on its camera, radar and other sensors and sent it into the air. The craft rose and hovered patiently like a guest at a front door waiting to be admitted to a party after ringing twice.

He walked to the edge of the highway and pitched the orange float into the current. It sped off immediately, as did the drone, ten feet above. They were connected via a radio link to stay invisibly tethered as the float followed the current, roughly the same route the missing SUV would have been tugged in.

The drone contained software that could recognize a large metal object like the vehicle, on the surface or submerged. If it came across one, Shaw would get a message with the GPS coordinates and the device would then go on to continue the search. The float dragged a small sea anchor to keep its speed down and give the drone a chance to zigzag across the entire breadth of the river.

Shaw had come up with the system himself and Teddy Bruin, former military, knew a drone technician, who had built the device. It was the second one that Shaw had used on the job. The first, employed to track an escaping bank robber, had been destroyed by a damn impressive—or unbelievably lucky—pistol shot.

Was it guaranteed to spot the vehicle? No. The Never Summer was wide in places, and it wasn’t possible for the device to cover every square inch. The radar wasn’t as reliable as its eye. He put the odds at twenty percent that it could miss something even as large as an SUV.

Still, in reward seeking when persons were missing and clearly endangered, you did everything you could.

Shaw returned the suitcases to the camper and checked his phone. The float was already fifty feet away and the drone had reported no sightings.

He recalled that the algorithm would also recognize human figures.

Alive or dead.

Climbing from the camper again, he walked down a hill into a park sitting atop a hillside overlooking the town of Hinowah. He had loaded some Wikipedia and website information into a reading-aloud app and listened to it on the drive here. The place was a mining town that dated to the Silver Rush days, the 1840s and ’50s, the same era in the same state as the more-famous Gold Rush. While the latter ore was more valuable than the former, the evolutionary template was the same: discovery, astronomical population growth, bloody battles over claims, the genocide of the Indigenous population and then quick departure after the mines were played out, leaving behind environmental scars that persisted to this day.

While some townspeople lived outside the immediate area, the bulk of them made their homes in the village, which nestled in a bowl directly in front of the levee. The majority of houses were wood-framed. The commercial structures too. Very little stone or brick. The older were more solid than the prefab and just-get-it-done structures from the last forty or so years. If the levee collapsed altogether, the village would be hit with a ten- or twelve-foot wall of water, he estimated. Some buildings would survive, he assessed, but others would be splintered to pieces and some carried away altogether. California was not the land of basements, and buildings’ foundations did not embrace their ascendant structures tightly.

And the flood would not stop with the initial impact. The Never Summer River was fed by a massive source: a currently dissolving pack after record snowfalls.

A survivalist must be aware of all types of natural disasters, and Shaw had looked into the dangers of floods. The majority of victims drown, of course, but many deaths and injuries occur from blunt force trauma, after being slammed into what’s in the flood’s path—or being struck by detritus: furniture, parts of buildings, heavy equipment, vehicles. One flood he’d read of hit a lumberyard and set thousands of planks and boards shooting downstream into a village at lethal velocity.

There is nothing compromising about water.

Some techniques allow you to fight—sandbagging or blowing new pathways with explosives—but the best chance of survival is to flee.

Which was clearly the—literal—marching order in Hinowah.

A fire truck and two ambulances were driving slowly through the streets, giving orders to evacuate to a college named Hanover, several miles northwest of town. Scores of vehicles—pickup trucks and SUVs mostly—were migrating in that direction on a two-lane road that rose through forest and rock to a hillside. The route was packed.

He now walked toward three rainswept tents, the flaps snapping sharply in the wind, beside which was a cluster of vehicles. Dominating was a white pickup, on whose door was printed Hinowah Public Safety . It was topped with a blue and white light bar. Nearby was a camel-brown squad car with the same logo. The other vehicles were off-the-rack SUVs.

Shaw walked up to a large redheaded man wearing a clear plastic rock concert slicker over his brown uniform. His trooper hat was also rain-protected. Shaw could see a name tag on his chest: TC McGuire .

“Officer.”

“How can I help you, sir?”

He introduced himself and the men shook hands. “I’m here to help look for the family in the SUV that went into the river.”

“Oh, sure, heard somebody was coming.” He looked Shaw over. “You law?”

“No. Civilian. I’m a tracker.”

“Like with dogs.”

“Without dogs.”

He shook his head. “We had six people looking for them, went south about two, three klicks, but no sign. Have to tell you, sir. It’s a big river, and moving fast.”

“I’ve got a drone looking for them.”

“Ah. My boy and me play with one of them some days off. They do searching?”

“Mine does.”

A fiftyish man, tall and quite slim and wearing a sturdy yellow fisherman outfit and sports cap, approached. He wore a badge but the younger officer called him “Mayor.” Then blinked. “I mean, Chief.” McGuire grinned. “Keep forgetting. Chief, this fellow’s the one we heard about. Like with dogs but he doesn’t have any. He’s got a drone he’s using. Can you imagine?”

“Drone. Really.” The man glanced up the hill at Shaw’s Winnebago and then back, saying, “One thing I need to say up front. I heard you do this for money. Public Safety’s a small office and our budget—”

“No charge. I’m volunteering.”

“Really? Well, appreciated, sir.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, word of warning. See that woman there, coming this way, the blonde. Do not cross her or get on her bad side. There’ll be hell to pay. I don’t use the ‘B’ word but with her, fits like a glove.”

Shaw gave a shrug. “I think I can handle it.”

The mayor’s expression was priceless when she walked up and threw her arms around him.

“You two know each other?” he whispered.

Shaw said, “We do. She’s my kid sister.”